UK in Laos

I arrived in Laos as a Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) volunteer on 28 April 1997 thinking the 2 years I was planning on spending in the country would seem an eternity. Now, 16 years later I am just two days away from leaving Laos. It has been an eventful, sometimes frustrating and life changing experience but it is time to leave, although not forever as my wife is Lao so we will be back for sure.

It was almost by chance that I first visited Laos in 2008. My plan to visit Myanmar with my wife Catriona had been cancelled at the last moment due to changed advice from the Foreign Office.

Having originally come to Laos on a working holiday in February 1995, I count myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to make my life here. A young man not long out of university, I was asked to visit two ex-college mates working for Houakhong Trading, a fuel company set up by a British investor.

The British Embassy plane, a de Havilland Beaver piloted by Major Alan Calder, Assistant Military Attaché, delivered me to Pakse in September 1972, together with my motor bike. As a volunteer with VSO, my job was to oversee the technical running of the Lao National Radio station in Pakse, and to continue the training of the Lao technicians.

This article is part of a series of guest blogs contributed by Brits who have lived and worked in Laos, or who have other interesting links to Laos. My first visit to Laos was in 1983 when I was part of a young professional scheme funded by the British Aid programme. I had been attached to a regional UN […]

This article is part of a series of guest blogs contributed by Brits who have lived and worked in Laos, or who have other interesting links to Laos.  I was posted to the British Embassy in Vientiane in 1959, only four years after the Embassy had first been set up. It was a very small mission. Only an […]

This article is part of a series of guest blogs contributed by Brits who have lived and worked in Laos, or who have other interesting links to Laos.  My parents were both born in Laos but came to the UK in the 1970s. I was born in Hackney in East London. Having visited Laos twice (once 8 […]

The following is a guest post by Colin Cotterill. In 1976, like Captain James Cook on his ill-fated trip to Hawaii, I set off from Blighty in search of adventure and never came back. Oh, perhaps the occasional Christmas or odd publishing junket, but I knew I’d never be taking advantage of the over-sixties London […]

We officially held our first day of work in the new British Embassy building on Monday!  After months of preparing for this occasion, everyone was very happy to move into the new building with nearly all of the staff in place just days before the official opening of the Embassy on 2 April. After a […]